Development
The Phoenix 0.1 Lightweight Browser
Mozilla.org has released version 0.1 of Phoenix, a lighweight web browser. "Phoenix is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to Galeon, K-Meleon and Chimera, but written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform."
The Phoenix release notes and FAQ state that Phoenix is primarily designed to be fast, but without sacrificing features. Some of the currently implemented features include:
- A Customizable toolbar.
- A Bookmarks and History Quicksearch capability.
- Fast start-up and operation.
- An overhauled Bookmarks Manager with undo/redo.
- A new look based on the Orbit theme.
- "Reasonable" Default Settings for pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, and other features.
- Support for plugins like flash and real.
- Satchel, a replacement for Mozilla's Wallet functionality.
- A new Plug-in and Add-on Manager.
- A new Download Manager.
- "your favorite" preferences.
System Applications
Audio Projects
PHP Audio Extension
Tony Leake has released his PHP Audio Extension, which connects PHP to the Ecasound ECI interface. "The PHP Audio extension is currently a wrapper for Ecasound, in the future higher level functions will be written for those who want audio processing in their PHP applications without learning the Ecasound syntax."
Clusters and Grids
Heartbeat 0.4.9d released.
Version 0.4.9d (beta) of heartbeat has been released by the High Availability Linux Project. Heartbeat "implements serial, UDP, and PPP/UDP heartbeats together with IP address takeover including a nice resource model including resource groups. It currently supports multiple IP addresses and a simple two-node primary/secondary model." New features include performance improvements, an applicaton heartbeat daemon, new ipfail code, a CCM membership daemon, improved documentation, and a PILS library. (Thanks to Alan Robertson.)
Database Software
Full transaction support added to MySQL
MySQL Inc. has put out a press release announcing the addition of a fully ACID-compliant transaction engine (called "InnoDB") to the popular MySQL database management system. "Consistent with all MySQL offerings, InnoDB is easy to use and highly reliable, having been battle-tested by the Open Source community."
Knoda 0.5.4 released.
Version 0.5.4 of the Knoda database access GUI for KDE has been released. Changes include a Postgres driver, drag and drop support, copy and paste fields for forms and reports, column sorting, UI improvements, FreeBSD support, and lots of bug fixes.Introduction to Xindice (IBM developerWorks)
Arun Gaikwad introduces Xindece, an XML database system. "This article is an introduction to an Open Source Native XML Database System, called Xindice (pronounced zeen-dea-chay). It is also an introduction to Native XML Database concepts."
Education
Linux in education report
Issue #79 of the Seul/Edu Linux in education report is out. Topics include the DebianEdu project, Linux in Indian schools, manuals for the computer illiterate, Red Hat on educational Linux, the Office Admin and Teacher Admin modules, MIT's Lifelong Kindergarten project, and more.
Electronics
New Icarus Verilog snapshot
The 20020921 development snapshot of the Icarus Verilog electronic simulation language compiler has been released. The changes are listed in the release notes.
Embedded Systems
First public release of wxEmbedded
The first beta version of wxEmbedded is available for testing. wxEmbedded is the project name for support for small devices in wxWindows (currently PDAs are the primary target).BusyBox 0.60.4 released
Version 0.60.4 (stable) of BusyBox has been released. "BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single small executable. It provides minimalist replacements for most of the utilities you usually find in GNU fileutils, shellutils, etc." This is a bug fix release, see the Changelog file for a detailed list of changes.
Libraries
Native POSIX Thread Library 0.1 released
Readers of the LWN.net Kernel Page have been following the effort to provide Linux with "world class" threading support - at least, from the kernel point of view (see, for example the August 15 and August 22 Kernel Pages). The user-space side of this work has been harder to follow - until now. Ulrich Drepper has announced the release of version 0.1 of the Native POSIX Thread Library. Click below to read the full announcement, which includes a fair amount of information on what Ulrich and kernel developer Ingo Molnar have been up to. "Unless major flaws in the design are found this code is intended to become the standard POSIX thread library on Linux system and it will be included in the GNU C library distribution."
Peer to Peer
Internet Radio the P2P Way (O'Reilly)
Howard Wen talks about internet broadcasting with Peer to Peer technology. "First there was AM. Then FM. Now, the next evolution in radio broadcast technology could very well be "P2P." What could be even more controversial than Internet radio/audio broadcasting--which has made headlines this year over the issue of royalty payments--and P2P file sharing? Probably the merging together of these banes of the music industry. Two P2P clients, PeerCast and Streamer, are exactly that. Without the need to have your own dedicated server, these programs let you stream audio files to other users on a P2P network. Essentially, you can run your own Internet radio station whenever you start up your computer and get online."
Web Site Development
Zope Members News
The latest Zope Members News headlines include: Alternative implementation of ZPT - with i18n!, First book ever about CMF/Plone!, PropertyList 0.1 Released, and PropertyObject & -folder 1.1 released.mnoGoSearch-php-3.2.0.beta7 available
Version 3.2.0.beta7 of the PHP frontend to the mnoGoSearch web site search engine software is available. See the ChangeLog file for a list of changes.Embedding Web Servers (Perl.com)
Perl.com has an article by Robert Spier on Embedding Web Servers with Perl.
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
Sweep Sound Editor
Conrad Parker has sent us a status update from the Sweep sound editor project. "Sweep is a full-featured open source sound editor, now used in production at Pixar and rapidly gaining popularity elsewhere. It features a character called Scrubby who is a very intuitive "scrub" tool and makes editing sounds a breeze. You can use Sweep for general sound editing on your Linux desktop, and thanks to Scrubby you can also use it as a tool for live DJing and experimental music. Sweep has undergone many changes recently to make it ready for widespread use, and I'd like to invite readers to try out the latest version (0.5.6)."
Desktop Environments
GNOME Summary
The GNOME Summary for September 12-18, 2002 is out with the latest GNOME development news.The latest FootNotes
This week's entries on FootNotes include Dropline GNOME 1.1.1, Workrave 0.1.0, Sodipodi 0.26, GStreamer 0.4.1, Gentoo Gnome 2.0.2, and more.Outlook Competition: Enter Kroupware and Kaplan
KDE.News looks at the Kroupware Project, part of a full-blown open-source groupware solution for KDE and commissioned by the German government. "But Don Sanders, KMail hacker, went one step further. He managed to transform KMail into a KPart and demonstrated how the different PIM components can be embedded in the pre-existing framework by Matthias Hoelzer-Kluepfel and Daniel Molkentin known as Kaplan"
Gspoof 2.1.1 relased
Stable version 2.1.1 of Gsproof is available. "Gspoof is a GTK+ program written in C language which makes easier and accurate the building and the sending of TCP packet with a data-payload or not. It's possible to modify TCP/IP fields also Ethernet header working to Link Level." This release features bug fixes and support for libreadline.
GUI Packages
FLTK 1.1.0rc7 Now Available
Version 1.1.0rc7 of FLTK, the Fast, Light ToolKit, is available. "FLTK 1.1.0rc7 is now available for download and is a candidate for the final 1.1.0 release. This release contains several portability and bug fixes."
Interoperability
Kernel Cousin Wine #136
Issue #136 of Kernel Cousin Wine is out. Topics include the ZDNet User Poll, a Linux Journal review, work on NetAPI32.DLL and WinASPI.DLL, mixing Unix and Windows calls, and Perl regression tests.
Office Applications
AbiWord Weekly News #110
The AbiWord Weekly News for September 23, 2002 is available. AbiWord 1.0.3 "Désir Satisfait" is now available, and more AbiWord news in this issue.Kernel Cousin GNUe #47
Issue #47 of Kernel Cousin GNUe is out with the latest GNU enterprise development news.Gnucash 1.8 proposed schedule
The Gnucash 1.8 proposed schedule is out, with an updated HBCI planned-feature list.
Web Browsers
Mozilla Independent Status Reports
The latest Mozilla Independent Status Reports include updates for Composite, Themes, Games, Bitflux Editor, TagZilla, Livelizard, Diggler, and MultiZilla.
Languages and Tools
Caml
The Caml Hump
This week, the new software on The Caml Hump includes toolpage, OCaml-SOAP, VisualML, OCamake, bdb, nML, and DML/de Caml.
Haskell
gtk+ haskell binding 0.14.10 released
Version 0.14.10 of Gtk+HS, the Haskell binding for the GUI toolkit GTK+, is available. "This release features a range of new widgets over the previous release and supports the use of the library as a GHC package."
Java
RelativeLayout, a Constraint-Based Layout Manager (O'Reilly)
James Elliott covers the RelativeLayout layout manager on O'Reilly. "Layout managers fall firmly into the periphery when talking about Swing. They're something you use all the time with Swing containers, but they predate Swing and you can use them just as well with an AWT application. Still, layout managers play such a fundamental role in arranging the pieces of your user interface that you need to develop a good understanding of at least a couple of them so that you can work effectively. And they hold the promise of enabling your application to look polished as it moves from platform to platform, gracefully adapting to new font metrics and component shapes."
Resin: The Instant Application Server
Daniel Solin writes about Resin on O'Reilly. "Imagine a Java Web application server that runs on Unix, delivers incredible performance, is really easy to set up, and inexpensive to boot. Even crazier, imagine that this little app server offers all of the features you expect from a modern Java server, including JSP/servlets, XML/XSL, and EJB/CMP. You can stop imagining. It actually exists, and it goes by the name of Resin."
Lisp
LML and aFTPd first public releases
The first public release of the aFTPd Lisp ftp server, and the LML Lisp Markup Language library for generating HTML and XHTML documents have been released.
Perl
This week on Perl 6
The September 9-16, 2002 edition of This week on Perl 6 is out. Topics include: Goal Call for 0.0.9, Scheme Implementation Details, chr, ord etc., Lexicals, IMCC 0.0.9 Runs 100%, Problem Parsing Builtins, building core.ops op_hash at runtime, Problems with 64-bit integer builds, and more.This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)
The September 16-22, 2002 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is out Topics include pedantic compilation, the default install location, closures in BEGIN blocks, perlopentut, smoke reports, and more.PerlQt-3 released.
Version 3 of PerlQt, a Perl Object Oriented interface to the Qt GUI Toolkit, is now available.
PHP
PHP Weekly Summary #104
Issue #104 of the PHP Weekly Summary looks at XSLT, Sablotron and PHP, Redefining class errors, changing .phps, and fixing ext/mbstring, OpenSSL additions, and ext/FriBiDi.PEAR Weekly News
This week's Pear Weekly News is out. "The mailing list has been very active during the past week, a sign to the return of an active cadence of updates, adds or fixes on pear. The subjects were various, from the classic 'Naming convention & coding standards' to the automatic translation system or peardoc. Sebastian Bergmann and Kristian Köhntopp have worked intensively on XML_Transformer, that will make us happy to see a new and very good stable release. This week has seen not less than four stable releases, that is itself a very good news, and one beta."
Python
The State of the Python-XML Art (O'Reilly)
Uche Ogbuji introduces his new Python-XML column on O'Reilly's XML.com site. "Welcome to the first Python-XML column. Every month I'll offer tips and techniques for XML processing in Python and close coverage of particular packages. Python is an excellent language for XML processing, and there is a wealth of tools and resources to help the intrepid developer be productive. In what follows I'll survey these tools and resources, giving a sense of how broadly Python supports XML technologies and giving you a head start on the more in-depth topics to follow." An extensive list of XML software for Python is included.
This week's Python-URL
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for September 24 is out with the latest from the Python development community.The Daily Python-URL
This week's Daily Python-URL topics include the CAMFR 1.0 Maxwell solver, PyANT 0.26, What's so special about Python 2.2?, the PyTone mp3 jukebox, the FOAFBot IRC bot, and more.
Scheme
Scheme Weekly News
The September 23, 2002 edition of the Scheme Weekly News is out with the latest Scheme developments.
Tcl/Tk
Tcl/Tk 8.4.0 Released
Stable version 8.4.0 of Tcl/Tk was recently released. Click below for the announcement. This is a fairly major update, see the release notes for the full story.Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The September 22 edition of the Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is out with an assortment of articles about Tcl/Tk, including the announcement of Tcl 8.4 final.
XML
XML Canonicalization (O'Reilly)
Bilal Siddiqui writes about XML Canonicalization on O'Reilly's XML.com. "This two part series discusses the W3C Recommendations Canonical XML and Exclusive XML Canonicalization. In this first part I describe the process of XML canonicalization, that is, of finding the simplified form of an XML document, as defined by the Canonical XML specification. We'll start by illustrating when and why we would need to canonicalize an XML document."
Euro-XML (O'Reilly)
Rick Jelliffe illustrates several character encoding techniques for XML on O'Reilly. "There are three ways of representing the euro in XML:"
* numeric character references, * character entity references, and * direct characters.
This article examines these and other more arcane but important ramifications.
Brother, Can You Spare a DIME? (O'Reilly)
Rick Salz covers DIME on O'Reilly's XML.com. "This month we look at Direct Internet Message Encapsulation (DIME), a binary message format; and we'll also look briefly at the WS-Attachments specification, which provides a generic framework for SOAP attachments, and a definition for a DIME-based instantiation of that framework."
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